Thursday, 11 April 2019

Future of Power Generation – Solar or Coal Fired Power plants


In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. Rather, it only convert from one form to another. The USA, world’s largest economy, is the second biggest user of electricity in the world behind Canada. However, it is largely dependent for its electricity needs on fossil fuels. According to an estimate, nearly 33 percent of the power is produced by coal firing as per the government reports published in the year 2016.

A lot of emphasis is seen across the globe on the usage of large scale solar and especially on the usage of solar power for power generation instead of fossil fuels. A recent survey by agencies shows that the power generation from solar energy is very cost effective alternate option and can be adopted by most of the world very soon, say by the year 2040. This will not only assist our mother earth to reduce pollution but also the global warming effect the world is facing. Today, it is important to address air pollution and increase the competitiveness of renewables in countries that depend on coal.

The recent study conducted by the Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows, the coal-fired power plants electricity generation in the USA is likely to reduce to half of the present capacity by the year 2040, whereas in the Europe, it is projected to drop to 87 percent. This kind of drops in coal-fired power station and the then shift to solar power plants are driven due to the fall in the average price of electricity generation from solar energy, as the cost per kWh power produced from solar is expected to decline by almost 66 percent by 2020. Not only solar, but even the cost of power generation from wind energy is also expected to drop 47% due to technological advancements.

Despite numerous benefits, the renewable energy sources can never replace coal or other fossil fuels from power production because they are nature dependent and sometimes unreliable too. Especially when it comes to generating power during emergency needs and the base load factor comes in picture. Over past centuries, coal has helped power economic development and lifted billions of people out of poverty. Coal’s role has accelerated since 2000, with global consumption increasing by almost two-thirds, driven by its rising use in China and India. However, it is also true that the coal industry in this sector may come in doldrums soon!

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